


Perfect, Boring Love

by enmity



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, cute ;w;, post-kh3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:48:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28632747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enmity/pseuds/enmity
Summary: Some things have changed, even if others haven’t.
Relationships: Saix/Xion
Comments: 11
Kudos: 9





	1. Perfect, Boring Love

_“I’m sorry.”_

Hearing those two words from her used to make him angry. True anger, Saix realizes now with a muted kind of shame, and not merely the pale imitation of it that nobodies are meant to settle for. He remembers the exact cadence of the phrase, every syllable an apology in and of itself, and the way she’d say it: looking up from the reports he’d torn up, from where she sat at the foot of her bed, that small voice snuffed out by fear or uncertainty or a pair of hands pushing her down into the pillow, choking the words from her throat, _shut up shut up shut up—_

“I’m sorry,” Xion says now, grimacing over the burnt remains of an omelet. Charred inside-out, yolk-yellow spillovers dying a messy death at the edge of the pan. The smoke fills up the kitchen, drawing pinpricks dripping slow and guilty from the corners of her eyes, and the first thing he thinks of isn’t that he should open the window. Instead it’s, _is that all you know how to say?_ – and Xion has a way of turning the most innocuous of moments into a landmine of old grievances and regrets, because when his hand twitches at his side, it feels as if that old anger had never gone away at all.

But some things have changed, even if others haven’t.

He’s found that when it comes to shutting her up, a kiss works just as well, too.


	2. I Want a Girl Who Never Laughs

The inside of her mouth tastes – clean. Menthol or bubblegum, something cool and clipped and wiped down with artificial sweetness. Strawberries. They share soap, toothpaste, mouthwash, the bed and the sheets; he doesn’t like the flavor but he bought it because she does, but when he kisses her, slides his tongue inside her mouth and traces along the roof of it in a way that’s not really gentle, not really nice, it’s not fruit or shortcake he’s thinking of.

He thinks of antiseptic. Iodine, peroxide, the raw cold sting of rubbing alcohol on broken skin. Cotton gauze. Disinfectant. Something cutting into the rot of an open wound, cleansing it. He imagines the way it would feel in his mouth. Bitter liquid burning a trail in his throat, a spoonful of sugar to help it all go down, and the reproachful “ _shh_ ”, the soft voice that eases the hurt and makes all the bad thoughts go away.

It’s okay. It’s okay, I forgive you. It doesn’t have to hurt. It’s okay…

But there’s nothing reassuring about the whimper in her throat, the short, unhappy sound she makes when his hand presses too hard against the beating of her heart, and her breath’s an outward flinch of muscles and exhaling lungs and raised ribs, unable to tell the difference between a threat and an honest mistake. He feels them, her ribs, the hard row of bones under soft skin and warm flesh and warmer rush of blood, coursing under nightmares no true love’s kiss can wake her from, but that’s not what this is, anyway, nothing so kind or easy in the way he nuzzles her breasts, traces the rigid line of her sternum and the jutting of her hip, and when his fingers hook under flimsy cotton to tug her underwear down her legs part for his mouth easily, too easily. He tastes the pity in the gesture, fear in the way her gaze trembles under her eyelashes, and the guilt is something rotten and acrid rising up his throat – but “sorry” isn’t the kind of satisfaction he can afford to give her, and so he thinks of bruises and bleeding cuts and bleaching detergent, ice cream and the goddamn fake strawberries she loves so much, and kisses her until she’s all he can taste, and by the time he stops hearing her forgiveness echoing like a death sentence in his head he’s long past the point of needing to think of anything at all. 


	3. Everything's Real, Except for You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not even the 14th anymore here...

She talks to him. It’s something she likes to do. Seated between his knees with her back turned to him and her hands catching bubbles of soap between her fingertips, Xion talks about anything and everything: the dog she petted on her way back from the grocery store ( _he was so cute!_ ) the taste of today’s dinner (just pasta and canned sauce again, but she assures him it’s delicious), the tint of the sky that afternoon as it had dimmed lazy and languid into night.

“It was so purple! Isn’t that amazing? I didn’t know sunsets came in so many different colors!”

She’s a chatty one, kicking both legs against lukewarm water with the same fervent force she expends for the dishes, scrubbing soap to get at every limb, every crevice of smooth, unscarred skin her clothes do a good enough job of hiding, most days.

Most days, truthfully, she doesn’t wear black, and “like” is the most relative term there is to describe the pang of emotion he feels when he sees her in colorful skirts or blue denim or a simple winter coat of utilitarian color, a plastic clip in her hair that’s more decorative than anything else. But (and this is the most private of admissions) he thinks that’s when he likes her best, when she looks like she’s just stepped out from her picture-perfect life of ice cream and playground friends and Lea, an odd splash of color and light and perpetually-cropped black hair standing in the doorway of his barebones home, looking for all intents and purposes like she’s lost her way.

An intruder, something unwanted and out of place.

Those days he could believe it, could even smile wryly at the thought, as if it’s simply a matter of turning her around by the shoulders and shooing her away, back into the safe distance where she belongs.

Cast in a school uniform and the rusk of sunset Xion would have looked painfully mundane, stunningly ordinary: someone pretty and forgettable and everything she might have turned out to be, had things been different. Her smile would’ve been a safe, demure thing, something he could look back at through the glass, the reassurance of the picture frame he’s trapped her in, and he would’ve felt sorry, yes, would’ve felt sad for the child he hurt and the girl she’d grow up to be, safely away from the organization’s shadow and surely so much happier out of his sight. He would’ve swallowed the regret like brambles in his throat, a necessary pain, and that would've been the end of it, because remorse is a one-way street, a debt he’ll never pay off and one she has no interest in collecting.

She would have, and he would have, but that’s another world altogether, and as it stands Xion is tilting her head back, a giggle bubbling up her throat as wet dark hair pushes against his chest, flicking droplets of water everywhere, and the soles of her feet squeak and slip against the ceramic when she grins lopsided and bright at him, looking for all the world like she actually _cares_ when she asks, “So, how was your day? Tell me all about it!”

He thinks on days like this, he might hate her most of all.

He says instead, “I’m glad you remembered to buy soap,” and when she stares at him like he’s just told a joke, it takes all the willpower in the world not to shove her unsuspecting head face-first and into the water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [REALIZED AFTER WRITING IT I WAS DESCRIBING SOMETHING MY FRIEND DREW ME PLS LOOK](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Et0TT0bWYAYKwb2?format=jpg&name=large)


	4. You Must Be So Wonderful

In the mirror Isa looks embarrassed, off-kilter; there’s a lovely startle of red rushing to his cheeks, the kind of reaction that Even would explain with textbook terms like _circulation_ and _vessels_ , were she to ask him later, but right now all she can think of is a revelation that startles, that feels like a secret though it isn’t: _you’re human._

Would Saix have blushed? Would he have so primly seated himself in front of the mirror, knuckles set one on top of the other in a squirming deadlock on his lap? Xion thinks not, but then again maybe she’d not known him very well at all, considering the face he’s making right now.

She remembers a past life, a past body; not once in that long year had she imagined the kinds of expressions the muscles on his face could contort into that wasn’t some combination of rage or a kind of fear she’s only since recognized, with a dull sadness, in cornered animals. But there’s nothing scary or sad about his present embarrassment, no sharp twisted edges for her to nick herself on. Nothing like the cruelty she had thought he so deftly commandeered when in truth the strings that dictated him were always there, shadows controlling every motion and every sad thought that ever crossed his mind, pitifully hidden and out of sight, so as to give the illusion of choice. It’s benign, harmless. Adorable, even, if he could stand to hear it.

Nothing Xion can’t handle.

He shifts. His face twists. The chair is too small for him. He could complain about that. He could do a lot of things. He could leave, push her away, grab her by the wrist until the impact of fingers on skin on bone shocks her enough to drop the hairbrush, the rubber tie, the balance of inertia and gravity that keeps both feet standing upright instead of being knocked prone and sprawling into the floor- 

He could do a lot of things.

His shoulders tremble, then relax. He sighs, acquiescing, and that sounds rather lovely too, but his gaze meets hers in the smooth silvered pall of the mirror; the intensity of that green takes her aback as something sorrowful and glum crosses his eyes for the briefest of moments, and she finds that her heart can’t help but break, just a little bit, for him.

He looks away. She smiles. _It’s a welcome ache_ , she wants to say, _to hurt for a friend_.

“Shh,” she says, though she’s looking squarely at her beaming reflection, and not at him. “You’ve nothing to worry about! It’s just a hairbrush, Isa, c’mon~”

Once upon a time Saix wouldn’t have hesitated to sneer, to show her the backhand of that open palm for even _suggesting_ —but confronted with Isa’s frowning, put-upon reflection in the mirror, Xion’s first thought is to giggle.

(The second is what jolts her: she thinks, _maybe_ once upon a time _never happened at all,_ and for a short, blissful second, she believes it.)

She doesn’t giggle; it might startle him, or else he might take it the wrong way. She knows how touchy and sensitive he can be, in those painful months of relearning how to be a human again, when being given a second chance is as cruel as it is the most merciful of punishments. But she puts one hand on his shoulder and another to brush aside blue-indigo bangs, careful to avoid the scar, and she hopes he can hear it, every bit of hopeful joy she feels in the pulse of her beating heart. 

( _Human._ Just like his must be.)

She hopes he knows it's meant for him.

“Let’s try a braid this time!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the most cliche of 7/14 fanart cliches
> 
> practice... trying to feel for xion pov... i just wanna say girl, what the fuck,


	5. 2 x 2

The change of seasons is a mundane thing, nowadays. Once he’d have reacted with bewilderment, even fear, at the passage of time—too used to years of perpetual dark skies and gray hallways. Now it simply means no snow to shovel, to trade coats and scarves for lighter clothing.

Saix walks past sprouting trees and healthy buds with steadfast indifference. A more optimistic person would tell him he’s moving on, but he’s a contrarian.

“Ooh,” Xion beams. “Isa! This one matches your hair!”

She reaches up to tuck the aster behind his ear. Once, he wouldn’t have let her, either.

—

Summer in Radiant Garden meant lights and attractions and stands with greasy treats vying for attention. He doesn’t know why she insisted on flying halfway across the world to be here; he doesn’t ask, because he’s not interested in the answer.

“Here.” Xion hands him candied apples, blisteringly red.

_Don’t eat too much of that. You’ll stuff yourself sick._

_Shut up! Nobody asked you!_

There’s a trail of sugar clinging to her lip; he has half the mind to pluck the stars landing in her eyes. He’s never had the stomach for sweets—but has that ever stopped him before?

—

It isn’t her favorite season, but she has a soft spot for autumn. She likes the warm colors, the crunch of dried leaves; her best coat, purple and snug. She likes the cycle of nature, how things wither so they can bloom again.

Her heart awoke in a new, perfect shell, translucent veins humming the anthem of a second life, and on the outside, there were no scars. It’s a phantom feeling, bruises and scratches along her arms and throat, but when she touches her skin, it’s seamless, unbroken.

It’s alright. Even trees must miss their leaves, in the fall.

—

Against the snow and frost Isa looks awkward and washed out, and perfectly at home—like he belongs with the scenery, the pale sky and barren branches, and Xion laughs, because she can.

They’re dancing on the ice; the metal blades slide and skid across the lake, and it’s a little scary, a little alien—a little familiar, too. She remembers frigid wastelands and unforgiving deserts, the swarms of Heartless her weapon could only do so much to keep at bay.

She’s not so worried about the fall.

Still, she holds onto his hand for balance. Just because she can.


	6. Chapter 6

“What’s it like?” she murmurs, “In your nightmares, I mean.”

Xion pushes the glass of water towards him; he sits up, drinking obligingly. A good patient, or a loyal dog? Such thrilling possibilities. He scoffs. “Why ask? To laugh at me, I’d hope.”

“N-No! I just thought… it’d be good. To talk about it.” She flinches, stares at her hands. “It might help.”

“They’re nothing special.” Darkness. Dusty basements. Open wounds, gnashed teeth. _You_. “Not like you’ve never had them, anyway. Imagine for yourself.”

“Oh,” Xion sighs, smile wistful. Her eyes are closed. “I’ve never dreamed before. So tell me.”


End file.
